Focusing On Life 52 weeks~ Week 12~ Observe The Curve

 

Much like a roadmap,

a sewing pattern is a guide,

full of twists and turns and curves,

stop signs and markers and directions

taking you on a journey.

 

A little confusing at the start perhaps,

even overwhelming at times

but if you trust in the process,

and in the mapmaker's skills,

have a little faith,

you will end up right where you need to be.

 

This past weekend, I was lucky to attend The Sewing and Quilt Expo in Lakeland with my Mom.

I have been inspired to do a little more sewing ever since going to the ACC show in Baltimore a few weeks ago with my friend Bette.

 

At that show I fell in love with several handmade garments, gorgeous tunics and jackets that were unfortunatley WAY out of my price range.

When I saw the sewing expo advertized I jumped on the chance to go and I was not disappointed, as a matter of fact, I wish I had found out about it sooner as they offered many classes over the course of 4 days,  a good number of them in garment construction.

I may try to get to the one in Baltimore when it comes there and pick up a few classes  if I can get away.

 

I was able to pick up several designer patterns and some wonderful fabrics that I don't usually see in the average fabric shop.

I opened one of the patterns and immediately saw the answer to this week's prompt.

I have also wanted to use the posterization affect on a photo and the graphic nature of this photo lent itself perfectly to that.

 

Observe the rest of the curves over at The Sudio Sublime.

Focus On Life 52 Photos ~ Week 8 ~ Monochromatic

 Monochromatic  ~  consisting of one color

Sally's prompt for us this week
Monochromatic photos tell a story, evoke emotion and uncovers the soul with the simple contrast of one color. Monochromatic photos enable the viewer to see a deeper meaning behind what may be concealed by multiple colors.

This week look deeper through the lens to the story your photo captures and then process it to one color! Or be daring and shoot in B&W (monochrome).

 Faded photos.

Edges bent and even torn.

 Lying in a pile of memories

 tucked away in some long forgotten musty cardboard box.

Old friends.

Family gatherings.

 Momentous occasions.

Snippets of a life captured on film

 to be revisited time and again over the years.

 Heartwarming thoughts of times together.

  People and places once visited.

Stories told.

Dreams and secrets shared.

And food.

Hugs and laughter exchanged.

 Old times that take on a dreamlike quality

Living in our memory and our hearts

Forever revived with a simple photograph.



original photo before processing for monochromatic



This past week I had the opportunity to visit with my dear friend Carol and her hubby as they were in the process of cleaning out their other home to be sold.

We enjoyed a wonderful lunch together followed by conversation and laughter back at her home by the fireplace all nice and toasty.

 

Before leaving, I spotted this amazing old school desk that Carol had used to create on and would not be making the trip to their townhouse.

The next day Carol contacted me to come and get the desk, knowing it was going to a good home where it would be loved and appreciated.

 

I wonder how many papers were corrected on this desk,

lessons planned, books and reports piled,

 how many gifts to teacher placed there in the morning,

a shiny apple perhaps, a flower from someones garden?

 

Then all the artwork and jewelry that Carol created sitting at this same desk.

Letters written, books and papers piled.

 

Now handed down to me to carry on the tradition.

Thank you sweet friend.

Hugs.

 

Be sure to visit The Studio Sublime for more monochromatic memories.

Focus On Life 52 Photos - Week 6 ~ Feel The Love

Well, believe it or not it is already week 6 of Sally Russick's challenge to Focus on Life 52 weeks in photos and for this week Sally told us-

"Since love is in the air in February,

this week keep your heart open, breath in the air and feel the love, then capture it in a photo.

Feel the love that the universe is trying to show us everyday!"

 Ray and I left our place in Florida Tuesday morning and traveled straight through to get to these hugs and smiles impatiently awaiting us! Our daughter invited us to stop over to their house for dinner on our way home knowing we would be exhausted from the 13 1/2 hour trip , and she was right.

But as soon as we arrived at the door, we could hear our names being called " NANNY, POP-POP" and we were greeted with the best running and jumping hugs and kisses to revive us!

Thankfully, I had my little point and shoot in my purse and grabbed these shots.

This is just the best! It made leaving the 80* temps and sunshine to come home to the 30*'s and dreary gray a lot more bearable!

When we got to our house, as soon as we opened the porch door we were greeted again with lots of love!

Our cat Lunabelle is 11 1/2 yrs old so she stayed home in the care of our son while we were away and she has barely left our side since getting home.

In this shot she was sitting on the arm of my husband's chair but she wouldn't let my hand leave her, as I rubbed her neck she leaned further and further following my hand.

I got to feel the love a lot this week, in the pictures above but also in the goodbye hugs from my loving parents when we left Florida and then with our son and family and friends as we celebrated his 24th birthday with margaritas, mexican food and lots of chatter and laughter at a local restaurant and then back at his new place. 

I would like to end this post with a wish for the safety and well being of all of those in the path of this winter storm Nemo. We were fortunate to just receive several inches of rain and lots of wind and cold temps but I know those to the north of us have received much worse.

I hope you are all warm and safe and feeling the love!

Head on over and maybe even decide to join in the challenge, the year is young, at The Studio Sublime and feel the love!

Focus On Life 52 Photos - Week 5 ~ Capture A Heart

First of all, I would like to thank everyone for all of their heartfelt comments over the first 4 weeks of these prompts. I am diligently working my way through all of the posts that I have missed and commenting on each one as I think that is one of the best parts of being in a hop like this, getting to  know everyone on a deeper level, taking the time to really connect ( remember my word for the year?) I find there is so much more to be gained by doing so than simply fullfilling my prompt for the week.

I have also begun to respond to comments left here on this blog in the comment section as there are quite a few that come through as noreply comment @ blogger so you can read my responses right here instead of individual emails.

Now on to week 5, can it really be 5 weeks already???

 Sally's prompt for week 5 in her own words-

"Have you ever taken a moment to notice all the hearts that come into your life everyday? From candy hearts, patterns on clothes, a paper heart you make yourself or heart shaped spirals made from the ornate rod iron fencing that you may or may not have ever noticed on your walk around the neighborhood, hearts are hidding everywhere. This week pay attention to your surroundings, think outside the box and capture a heart! "

It is strawberry season in Florida where we are still visiting and something I love to do is make strawberry jam when they are at their peak of freshness.

Part of my word for the year to reconnect is to reconnect with ALL  things I love and canning is one of them and something I had gotten away from save for a few batches of jam here or there each year.

As I was hulling the strawberries for a batch this week, I pulled back the green leaves and was getting ready to cut when the sight of this heart stopped me in my tracks!

 So this is my found heart for this week.

You can click here to go see how everyone else captured a heart this week!

A lot of people who have never made homemade jam shy away thinking it is a lot of work but it is really very simple and very gratifying.

I personally use Sure Jell and Certo in my recipes and before the holidays discovered that if you go to www.kraftrecipes.com

and type sure jell or certo in the search box, no less than 179 recipes pop up.

I have since made the Banana Nut Bread Jam,    Banana Butter,  Holiday Fruit and Nut Jam,

Chocolate Raspberry Spread,   Wine Jelly,   Strawberry Pineapple,    Pineapple Jam, & Cherry Almond  all of which have gotten rave reviews.

 It doesn't take a lot of fancy equipment and supplies to make jam.

Start with firm fresh fruit when possible. For strawberries, wash and hull and drain in a colander. 

I use a blender but depending how fine you like the fruit in your jam, you can even just crush the fruit by hand. I like mine smooth with tiny bits of fruit, not large pieces.

Measure fruit and sugar, for this recipe it takes 5 cups of pureed fruit and 7 cups of sugar. I also made the lower sugar version which takes 6 cups of fruit and 4 cups of sugar.

 Dump the fruit in the stock pot, add a tablespoon of butter to reduce foaming, dump one box of sure jell in, stir and put on medium heat, stirring constantly until it starts to boil which only takes a couple of minutes.

 When it hits a boil, dump all the sugar in and stir rapidly to prevent scorching and continue to stir until it reaches a full rolling boil again. Stir for one full minute and then remove from heat.

Now what I haven't shown you here is that I have washed my jelly jars and placed them in a pan in the oven on 200* to stay hot until i am ready to fill them.  I also have a small pot of water on the stove  which when it came to a boil I turned the burner off and put the jar lids and bands in to sit until ready to use. I also have my pressure canner pot ( just because it is the largest one I have here, but you can even use another stock pot) filled with water on a simmer until ready on the back burner.

And since it is a rather quick process at this point, i don't have a photo of the funnel and filling the jars, but you just take your jars out of the oven and using the funnel, one by one fill the jars with the hot jam to within an 1/8" of the top, place a flat lid and a band on each jar, hand tighten and place in the water bath in your large pot.  Make sure the water is covering the tops of the jars by an inch or 2.

 Bring water to a boil and boil for 10 minutes, ( no lid) then remove jars and let cool on the counter.

As they cool you will hear the satisfying "POP" of the lids as they vacuum seal down.

The process is pretty much the same for each jam recipe, any variances will be in the ingredients.

It may seem complicated but the whole process only takes about a 1/2 hour start to finish ( once the fruit is hulled) I actually prefer to make several batches, even different ones once I have everything out and going. While the batch is in the water bath I clean up and gather the ingredients for the next batch and start over.

It is a great activity to do with kids as it goes quickly and they have something very tangible to enjoy at the end and feel a great sense of accomplishment.

 Shown L-R, strawberry pineapple,  regular strawberry and low sugar strawberry. You can tell the low sugar version is much more fruit dense and less sugar.

 This however is the full sugar version :) on a piece of sourdough toast

But the sweetest thing of all was being able to spend the time with my Mom in the kitchen, working together we made 6 batches in 4 hours.

Love you Mom.



Focusing On Life 52 Photos- Week 2 ~ Illustrate Your Word For the Year

Week 2 of our photographic journey of 52 weeks of photo prompts.
This week's prompt is to illustrate our word for the year.
Funny, I have never chosen a word for the year like I have seen so many people do, but decided to pick one for this year.

My word for the year is reconnect.
You can read all about the importance of that word for me in my New year's blog post here.
To illustrate it my first thoughts were to find an image of an actual connection, like electrical but then I had the idea for the card, to signify corresponding and reconnecting to family and friends and all that is important to me.

Head on over to The Studio Sublime to see what everyone elses word for the year is and how they photographed them.

P.S. I will be out of town when this posts and will visit everyone as soon as I return!


Happy New Year and Reconnect

 

 

I have never chosen a word for the year but for 2013 I am choosing the word " Reconnect".

According to the Oxford dictionary reconnect means " to connect back together, join again, reestablish a bond of communication or emotion."

 

During 2012 on more than one occasion I was finding myself very disconnected from self and many things that have always been important to me.  The year seemed to take on a life of it's own, whisking me along like an unwilling object floating away downstream, unable to grab at a branch or root to be able to slow down or stop.

Health issues left me feeling somewhat out of control and disconnected to my body. 

 

I seemed unable to find the time and energy to blog on a regular basis or even keep up with emails and correspondence.

 

I have a mound of greeting cards on my desk, everything from get well's and thinking of you cards, to birthdays and anniversaries that I very diligently ran to the store to pick up on time and then never got in the mail!

 

 

My creativity was next to non existent in 2012 with the exception of works made in  the few classes I took at different venues. My studios never got organized and workable.

 

We spent so much time between work at the restaurant and renovations on the rental for my son who just moved out Thanksgiving weekend, at times there didn't seem to be enough room in my brain for anything but those myriad of decisions.

 

 I never really felt like I caught up in any area of my life last year so instead of trying to catch up, I am just going to approach everything as new and start fresh. I am thinking that will take a lot of the pressure off and make the tasks at hand a little more enjoyable to take on.

 

I have found myself relating to past events as if they took place this past year when in fact they were in 2011! I have said often I feel like I lost a year. So I guess my new word could even be "found" but I'd rather reconnect.

 

 

I want to reconnect with all that I love and is important to me, family, friends, home, domestic joys,  photography, art, clay, jewelry.  I want to be able to enjoy these things again and not feel like everything has become a chore that I need to keep up with but rather springs from a genuine desire to do them.

 

I wish you all a blessed New Year, filled with love, health and all things that fill your life with passion and happiness!